A tiny community descended from slaves on Georgia's Sapelo Island is again fighting local officials over property assessments that resulted in huge tax increases.
Residents and landowners of the small Hog Hammock community say they could be taxed out of their homes and forced to sell their family land.
They waged a second round of appeals Monday with the McIntosh County Board of Equalization, which in January ordered assessors to recalculate land values on the island.
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Property tax is inherently unfair to everyone but particularly to poor folks and older folks. The problem is that some powerful person or people want that land for themselves. They should be granted use value on the property similar to what farmers
ReplyDeleteget on farm land as long as it stays in production.
I could be persuaded to say they should be exempt as long as they don't try to profit from the property by development.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the land is probably worth more than they want being on an island, but if they cannot afford to pay what they are asking, then maybe some arrangement could be made to lower them, but with a time limit. Life goes on and we can't expect to pay the same each year no matter where we live as I am sure we are all well aware.
DeleteWow , Mr. Townsend
DeleteTrue Brock but the idea of taking someone's home (ancestral home) away from them (forcing them to sell) because it is worth more in dollars to someone else than
ReplyDeletethe family can afford is just wrong in my opinion. One alternative would be similar
to what is done with farm land. It is taxed at "use tax rates" as long as it's use does not change. Then if it is sold off for another use at a value that exceeds it's value in the current use there is a look back period of usually 3 to 5 years.
In other words if a farm is worth 3,000 an acre as farm land it is taxed based on that value. If it is sold at some point for 10,000 an acre to a developer then the seller has to go back and pay the differential in the taxes between the two values. So if it is a 3 year look back the seller would be taxed on an additional 21,000 dollars per acre after the sale. 10,000-3000 x 3 years.
True Brock but the idea of taking someone's home (ancestral home) away from them (forcing them to sell) because it is worth more in dollars to someone else than the family can afford is just wrong in my opinion.
DeleteThey aren't taking it away, they are increasing the taxes which I imagine has happened to you as well as to me. We lost the land that my ancestors had owned since since 1790 because of the same thing in 1865 and that's the way the ball bounces. Fortunately I was able to buy it back in 1992.
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One alternative would be similar to what is done with farm land.
Farms are different. My place was about 3,500 acres at one time, but now that it is 6, I get no break and I imagine those who live on the island have parcels smaller than mine.